Gender equity curriculum schools soon

A gender equity curriculum will be integrated into the syllabus for students across government schools in Odisha to transform their attitudes, aspirations and behaviour.

The School Education Department signed a memorandum of understanding with the Abdul Latif Jameel Poverty Action Lab (J-Pal), South Asia, and women rights' organisation Breakthrough in Bhubaneswar on Monday.

It will be integrated into the social studies syllabus for boys and girls from classes 6-10 in over 18,000 elementary and 5,000 secondary schools by August. "Adolescence presents a crucial window of opportunity to change even deeply-rooted norms and instil more progressive gender attitudes," J-Pal South Asia executive director Shobhini Mukerji said. Breakthrough will work with the department to contextualise and integrate the curriculum into the syllabus, train teachers, receive feedback, conduct workshops and engage parents in the process as well.

J-Pal will conduct independent monitoring activities to ensure that the programme is achieving its objectives to generate insights for sustained, high-quality government implementation of the syllabus. "Gender equality is very important. We are working on it." School Education Minister Samir Dash said. The expected outcomes of the programme include positive gender attitudes, parents investing in education for daughters, improved sex ratio and more labour force participation by women.